3RD INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS ON TECHNOLOGY - ENGINEERING & SCIENCE - Kuala Lumpur - Malaysia (2017-02-09)

The Effect Of The Bamboo Fiber And Injection Moulding Processing Conditions Towards Shrinkage And Warpage.
This paper presents the effect of the content of Gigantochloa Scortechinii fiber nad injection moulding processing conditions towards shrinkage and warpage. The samples were made from polypropylene-nanoclay-Gigantochloa Scortechinii with the addition of compatibilizer. The contents of fibre were fixed at 3 wt.% to 6 wt.%. The selected injection moulding processing conditions were packing pressure, melt temperature, screw speed and filling time. The quality factors that need to be improved upon the optimisation were warpage and shrinkage. This research started by drying the Gigantochloa Scortechinii fibres at 120°C. After that, 3 wt.% of the fibres were mixed with 81 wt. % of polypropylene, 15 wt. % of polypropylene grafted maleic anhydride (compatibilizer) and 1 wt. % of nanoclay. Samples with 6 wt% of fibers were also prepared for comparison purpose. The mixing process was performed by using Brabender Lab-Compounder KETSE 20/40 and the pallets were produced using used Brabender® pelletizer with diameters of 1 to 4 mm. The optimisation process was accomplished by adopting the Taguchi L9 orthogonal array method. According to the results, the optimal condition shrinkage for compound with 3 wt.% content of fibre is 170⁰C for melt temperature, followed by 30% of packing pressure, 25% screw speed and 3 seconds for filling time. The optimal condition for 6 wt. % fibre is 175⁰C for melt temperature, followed by 30% of packing pressure, 25% screw speed and 2 seconds for filling time. As for warpage, the optimal condition for compound content 3wt.% of fibre is 165⁰C for melt temperature, followed by 40% of packing pressure, 35% screw speed and 3 seconds for filling time. On the other hand, the optimal condition for 6 wt. % fibre is 170⁰C for melt temperature, followed by 35% of packing pressure, 30% screw speed and 1 seconds for filling time. The existence of Gigantochloa Scortechinii fibre was also proven to effect significantly towards shrinkage and warpage. In conclusion, the optimum parameter of polypropylene-nanoclay-Gigantochloa Scortechinii had been achieved, and the existence of fibre obviously giving a promising manufacturing opportunity to improve the quality of the injected moulding products.
Siti Zubaidah Khamis, Mohd Hilmi Othman, Mohd Halim Irwan Ibrahim